Dutch mull radical cash for kidneys plan
Donate organ, get free health insurance
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Dutch health minister Ab Klink is mulling a Dutch Health Council recommendation to offer "free health insurance for life to anyone who donates a kidney for transplant", the Sunday Times reports.
The plan is a reponse to the Netherlands' "chronic shortage" of organ donors, which means around 200 people die every year while on the four-year waiting list for a new kidney.
According to a survey by the Erasmus medical centre in Rotterdam, the idea would attract "significant support" from the public. It discovered that "15 per cent of the public said they would probably be willing to donate a kidney if they received compensation".
Regarding this "compensation", the survey also found that when potential donors were quizzed as to whether they'd like €50,000 cash or the medical insurance, "up to 80 per cent chose the insurance".
Dr Alies Struijs, the author of the Dutch Health Council's report, did the maths thus: "At the moment everybody pays €1,000-€1,100 [£700-£800] a year for basic health insurance. If you are 30 years old and you donate and then live another 40 years, you could save €40,000-€50,000."
Bernadette Haase, the director of the Dutch Transplant Foundation, welcomed the idea, saying: "If it is properly run and well organised, it could be a solution."
The Dutch press, however, has expressed concern that the scheme might be "the first step towards a trade in human organs". Critics have cautioned that it "may put pressure on poorer people to give up their organs". ®
COMMENTS
Spare Parts
Instead of bribing the populace to give up their spare bits with cash and free health insurance, surely it would be more effective to assume someones bits are up for grabs after they kick it unless they are marked on a "I don't wanna dontate list". Heck you could even zealously gaurd your Frankenstein materials so those who opt out aren't allowed to get replacement parts, seems fair to me.
Surely
they have 200 or so tourists a year they could use, do it in the airport no one will notice, mention terrorism.
@The Other Steve
Of course, the fact that there are a quarter as many Dutchies as there are Brits has nothing to do with the fact that they have a quarter as many road deaths per year...
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